


The Warden  Abyssal

by perdita_x_dream



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Ancient Lore, Darkspawn, Deep Roads, Deepstalkers, Dragon Age Inquisition, Dragon Age Lore, Dwarf, F/M, Grey Wardens, Human, Legion of the Dead, Lyrium, Titans, deep mushroom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:35:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26338879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perdita_x_dream/pseuds/perdita_x_dream
Summary: The mission sent the Grey Warden far below the blighted planes of the Western Approach, beckoned by ages old importance and aided by the shaperate of Orzammar. What was left from the Second Blight lefter a path to the answers to riddles no one thought to ask, opened paths to truths long forgotten. What Called in the deep was a heavy burden to bear, the journey was long and the darkness weighed on the souls of the joined.
Relationships: Grey Warden / Legion of the Dead corporal





	The Warden  Abyssal

**The Warden stepped over the bleeding darkspawn** just felled. Rocks crackled under his feet as his armor hit the old stone path. Warm air stifly surrounded the ancient hallway and deep mushrooms grew from the old dwarven remnants. 

The halls were silent now. Only muffled rumbles moved across the chasm they just traversed. The mountain had a song, he knew, but only his companion could hear it. The stone sense, it made no sense to him, but it seemed to allow them to keep avoiding getting lost. He had already lost track of how far down they were. 

“Sodding genlocks bastards!” corporal Carinak kicked the blighted corpse with a disgusted look in her eyes as she passed it. Hollow shrieks rang out in the distance cutting through the silence, then nothing. The warden signalled her to be quiet and follow, one bloodied glove clad hand held up. “Signa…” he muttered almost inaudibly. 

The Legion of the Dead made for great soldiers, at last most of the time. Fearless as few others and longstanding allies of the wardens. Why Duncan had teamed him up with Signa he wasn’t sure, but knew not to question the old man’s wisdom. There was too much at stake in the end. 

The open doorway ahead was slightly blocked, not fully revealing what was on the other side. The small party made it’s muffled way past putrefied darkspawn idols and rotting indiscernibles to the passage. Grunting silently side by side the pair managed to heave the rocks though, opening the way to a larger hallow. 

Empty. 

As if hibernating. Lying fallow in languishing anticipation of the inescapable fate of all thaigs. Decay and putrefaction. But not yet.

 **He finally allowed himself to draw a full breath,** lowered his shoulders and reached for one of his leather pouches. Signa took a sip of something with a horrific smell that promised chest hairs and the cure to the mother of all colds. She didn’t cough, just put her flask back as she watched him pull out the map. 

It was old and withering, full of old symbols neither of them could read or even guess. The warden scholars hadn’t even known half of them, and the shaperate was of little help though they shared whatever insight they could offer. 

Part of him wanted to rip the damn thing into pieces. Nothing of this would bring them back anyways. Not his tears, not his angry desperate kneeling cries to the Maker, no manner of deaths dealt or battles won. Not this mission either. But any impulse to continue that thought was buried at the slightest advance, silenced and hidden, always. Not moving a facial muscle he extended the map to it’s full size. 

“Where would you say we are?” he asked his companion. Signa took a good long look at the map with it’s weird sigils and symbols, the eight armed star at the center. 

“Here” she said and pointed at a nook not too far from it. They were closing in. 

He sank down to the floor to sit. “Let’s make camp. I believe I still have...” 

“Nah, you already ate those yesterday” she said with a grin. “We’re back to deep mushroom and mosswine!” watching his face for revulsion. Prepared to laugh she met something more akin to puppy eyes before the look faded, and she punched his shoulder. “Don’t fret, I’ll go get some. You make a fire! Not like we need any more sodding heat, but you remember what happened last time you tried them raw… Now that was a cleanup, hah!” Then she left. 

Brave and heroic. That’s what they were called most of the time, the Grey Wardens. Sacrificing everything to end the endless blights. Dashing and daring, commendable fellows. At this point he could not feel further from the unyielding powers wardens were ascribed. 

They had set out from Adamant Fortress, the Orlesian fortress constructed by dwarves in the Western Approach that stands on the very edge of the Abyssal Rift. The letter from Duncan had stated that Signa had an unusually good stone sense; a means to once again since the Second Blight make it down that deep chasm believed to run as far down as the Deep Roads. And it truly did. 

The corridors and hallways of the Deep Roads this far down were different from what any of them had ever seen. What began with resolve begat a dull aching incertitude. The rotting air of the darkspawn warrens filled one's lungs and there was no cutting away at the how the increasingly louder Calling stultified any strong-mindedness in their attempts to reach the goal.

_“Behold the pillars of the earth! Equilibrium and symmetry in the waters of life. Here lies the memory that is all of memories. Uncut silver cords. Unsundered mountain. We know the dreams. We shape the world. We knew justice. Equipoise; the Maker.”_

He fingered the translation the scholars had given him. All he felt was tired. He knew he should feel hope, they talked about the promise. The huge implications, what this could _mean._ Still grasping it he fell into an uneasy slumber filled with darkness and the Calling of the abyss. 

…

 **He woke up, feeling** **_too_ ** **rested**. Like Signa should have awoken him like she always does when they need to get going. Jolting up his stiff body looking around him, all the bruises from their long journey made themself reminded. 

Nothing. _She’s gone!_

Jumping up to a full stand his armor creaked and something broke. He didn’t care. He looked at the sword on the ground, he didn’t even clean it from the darkspawn blood, the rust would surely start to set but there was no time to worry about that now. He wiped the dry blood off on a makeshift rag and put it in the sheath. 

The crumpled translation was still in his hand as he awoke and the map by his side. _No fire was made. She never came back._ He packed up as his stomach rumbled, going through the debris he found her mosswine flask and took it in his hands. The dazed distress of his innards forthwith quivered with an incipient burning rage. 

_He knew how to track_ . Even though the stone was harsh environment it was a withered, rusty, decaying one. Where there is dust, there are trail markers. _She will not go unfound._

The darkness penetrated by ancient dwarven lights of molten rock, eyes of deepstalkers gleaming in the distance. The air was less foul down here. Everything was different; a _different_ form of different. The stillness was palpable as he wordlessly followed her every last trace. 

_These are memories._ He passed glowing carvings in the walls. The darkness seeped into the diminishing hallways. They weren’t even hallways anymore, they felt _organic._ The repugnance of the detestable darkspawn warrens was nowhere to be felt, the nauseating feeling exchanged for… something else. Even the Calling was quieter. 

I can’t bring them back. _But I can find her._

The last cave path ended in a great hallway and he was taken aback. The cave roof was glittering like the star lit sky with lyrium; crashing blue waves of water hit the rocky shores of an immense clifftop on which he was standing. And then he saw her. 

At the end of the cliff her outline glowed against a huge cluster of lyrium crystals. She was unmoving, standing soundlessly, swaying? 

“SIGNA!” He ran towards her as if the world depended on it. Upwards, closer, panting; armor soaked in sweat and covered in lyrium dust and dried deepstalker blood. 

She only noticed him when he reached her and fell to his knees in front of her. As she slowly turned her head to him it was as if she was waking from a trance. 

“ Jehanin” she said, faintly, slowly. “It knows me. It knows us all. It spoke to me.” She put her hand on his shoulder and he looked up at her, tears in his eyes. 

“The wisdom is old. We are too late. But it is never too late.” she said looking at the warden with ardent eyes. Blinking doelike as if the visions were escaping her somehow, leaving her memories. Her hand wandered to his chin where it met his tears, and he could not let go of her gaze. He felt her spirit touch his, in the blazingly beautiful lyrium light making her look divine. 

She gently leaned toward him as if to kiss him, and his whole being rose his lips against hers as if he had never kissed before. _It is never too late_ . Her words echoing in him, lifting old sorrows and healing time old pains. His body ached for more, for everything, for a great starless void being filled. He enveloped her in his arms, pulling her closer to him as their lips interlocked in what seemed an eternity. _An eternity to never end, not this time._

Signa looked at him with eyes both new and filled with ancient wisdom, stroking him across the hair and finding his lips again and again, with a hunger only begat by unfulfilled promises in unspoken words during long campfire nights. _I’m here,_ she mumbled as she kissed his forehead, nose, lips and ears, and she could feel him turn to ease in her arms. 

On that cliff they would take off each other’s unswept armors, creaking from their joint hardships, marked by months of unyielding endurance. He would stroke her cheek with his calloused hands, a treasure found amidst the darkness. The gleaming lyrium stars would illuminate their glistening bodies as they explored every piece of skin that might be kissed, every part that could be felt by hands and every way to find each other for the first time in what felt like aeons. There was no mission, no greef, no outside world of perils but what had been growing in their hearts all this time. 

His body against hers in a fiery embrace. Passion, compassion, and earthly desires. Every longing could come to place; he could taste her; she could feel him. They were one, for this brief moment in time, praying for the moment to last forever in a ritual of desires. 

Whatever the sigils of the deep roads had materialized; whatever secrets had been revealed by the entity; possibilities unlocked and questions answered permitting the ending of the circle of blights; nothing mattered right here and right now. **All was finally as it should.**

  
  


**Deep roads soundtrack:  
** [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqCYsBgnmWk ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqCYsBgnmWk)

**Lovesong soundtrack:  
** [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQSlAowm5ww](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQSlAowm5ww)


End file.
